The Effects of Ingroup and Outgroup Friendships on Ethnic Attitudes in College: A Longitudinal Study

By Shana Levin, C. van Laar, J. Sidanius. 2003

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Data for this longitudinal study were collected from over 2000 White, Asian, Latino, and African American college students. Results indicated that students who exhibited more ingroup bias and intergroup anxiety at the end of their first year of college had fewer outgroup friends and more ingroup friends during their second and third years of college, controlling for pre-college friendships and other background variables. In addition, beyond these effects of prior ethnic attitudes and orientations on friendship choices, those with more outgroup friendships and fewer ingroup friendships during their second and third years of college showed less ingroup bias and intergroup anxiety at the end of college, controlling for the prior attitudes, pre-college friendships, and background variables. Results are discussed in terms of the contact hypothesis.

Subfields: Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5170cc3ca9f7c21614aa729f475054c59b171b83

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In Gender Studies

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Citations in the corpus

Ethnic Segregation and Perceived Discrimination in College: Mutual Influences and Effects on Social and Academic Life1 (2006, methodology): “Support for the peer support hypothesis was found as well: Perceptions of discrimination at the end of students’ first year of college were positively associated with in-group friendships during their second and third years (Levin et al., 2003).”
Ethnic identification in response to perceived discrimination protects well-being and promotes activism: A longitudinal study of Latino college students (2012, background): “For example, Levin et al. (2003) found that ethnic minority students developed more ingroup friendships later in college in response to earlier perceived ethnic discrimination on campus.”
Does contact reduce prejudice or does prejudice reduce contact? A longitudinal test of the contact hypothesis among majority and minority groups in three European countries. (2009, background): “In contrast, Levin et al. (2003) found effects of equal strength for both causal directions in their study of American college students.”
Cross-Group Friendships and Intergroup Attitudes (2011, background): “Over the past decade, the number of contact studies investigating the specific context of crossgroup friendship has increased markedly, and this work consistently finds that friendship, as compared to general contact, is more strongly associated with more positive intergroup attitudes (e.g., Aberson”
The effect of university roommate contact on ethnic attitudes and behavior (2005, background): “2 The ethnic and gender breakdowns of the White, Asian American, Latino, and African American participants in each year of data collection can be found in Levin et al. (2003).”
Perceived Discrimination and Interracial Contact: Predicting Interracial Closeness among Black and White Americans (2007, background): “…to more general forms of contact, contact in the form of interracial friendships can be especially effective in promoting positive interracial attitudes among members of racial minority and majority groups (Ellison and Powers 1994; Levin et al. 2003; Pettigrew 1997; Sigelman and Welch 1993).”